TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter s TI*MES Volume 2, Number 5. Xmas Issue December 2015

Bumper Issue for our 30th European TI994a Treffen On Friday Saturday and Sunday of October 2nd 3rd and 4th 2015 we had our yearly European TI Treffen but this year an important 30th Anniversary Treff held here in my home town of Crewe in the County of Cheshire, the Cover picture was taken in the Gladstone Conference Room the largest of the rooms in the Best Western Crewe Arms Hotel, just across from Crewe Railway Station and was very easy access for people coming by Plane from abroad less than 1 hour from Manchester airport direct to hotel by Train The Front Page picture shows 23 of the 24 attendees.

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TI*MES-Magazine A Twice A Year Publication of the T.I.U.G.U.K (Texas Instruments User Group of the United Kingdom)

IN THIS ISSUE PAGE ARTICLE AUTHOR

1, 3 30th Anniversary 2015 European Treff (a review) David Caine 2 Menu David Caine 14 Brief Thoughts on 2015 Crewe Treff Stephen Shaw 26 Advanced Passenger Train (brief history) Wikipedia 32 Secret Bunker Story from 1966 Hack Green Brochure 34 Attendees at Crewe Treff David Caine 35 Treffen Profit David Caine 36 Chicago 2015 International Meeting Berry Harmsen 39 F18A VGA Conversion (a workshop review) David Caine 43 2016 UK AGM Trevor Stevens 44 Next Year’s European Treffen 2016 Berry Harmsen 45 Module Library Francesco Lama 47 Membership Details David Caine 48 Board Of The TIUGUK Berry Harmsen and David Caine

Layout and Editorial of this issue by David Caine and Berry Harmsen The last day of publishing articles for TI*MES volume 2 number 6 will be May 20th 2016 This next issue of TI*MES magazine will appear In the middle of June 2016 With final updates for your trip to Copenhagen Denmark ======Merry Christmas vrolijk kerstfeest Fröhliche Weihnachten buon Natale glædelig jul

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THE EUROPEAN TI994a TREFFEN CONTINUED from Page One TUESDAY 29th The week started the day after Gerhard arrived, as he was staying in the Hotel over a full week , he arrived at the Crewe Arms on Monday the 28th of September and I

125 INTERCITY APT on PERMANENT DISPLAY in CREWE went to meet up with him in the Hotel on the Tuesday morning, it is fairly easy for me to get to the Hotel even though I don’t drive, I live about two miles away from the Hotel and I arrived on Tuesday morning by bicycle, with Gerhard speaking and understanding very good English and me not understanding a word of BEST WESTERN CREWE ARMS HOTEL FROM CAR PARK German, we greeted one another and set out a plan for the day, and I was able to show him around Crewe town centre we did go to the railway museum, which was not technically open and even though the indoor museum was closed we were able to walk around the grounds THURSDAY EVENING AROUND RECEPTION FIREPLACE and were able to view our first high speed tilting train from the 1980s the InterCity 125

APT, and there IN MEMORIUM FOR TONY KNERR 30th ANNIVERSARY BALLOONS was also a miniature narrow gauge railway for visitors, when open, anyway we had our lunch at the large Tesco Supermarket which was pretty good and Gerhard purchased a weekly Arriva Bus ticket which came in use going back to the Hotel at about 5pm.

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WEDNESDAY 30th We got together again at about 11am and boarded a bus to Sandbach about six miles away and a very historic Old English Market Town which was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth 1st in 1579 , it was most interesting walking around on a lovely TREVOR’s OPENING SPEECH AT 3pm ON SATURDAY Summers day and we ended up in The Black Bear public house on the Stone Column Square which Gerhard was very interest in as they held live music bands every week, we got back in Crewe by bus about 5pm, and there I had to leave Gerhard until Thursday evening to greet some more of the TI group as quite a WOLFGANG’s FIRST DEMONSTRATION ON FRI DAY few arrived that afternoon and I had to pack all of my TI Equipment for transportation on the Friday Morning, THURSDAY 1st I was packing all of my TI gear transferring from attic to garage ready for transporting by car to the Crewe Arms , this consisted of a console with stand alone TI disk controller, 32k boxcar memory and twin WATCHING DEMONSTRATION IN GLADSTONE ROOM 3 ½” Cumana disk drives and another

FRIDAY EVENING DINNER IN BROCKLEBANK PUB FRIDAY EVENING DINNER IN BROCKLEBANK PUB console with cf7+ sidecar and two consoles with two expansion box’s with two Myarc HFDCs and four 5 ¼” 80 track and four 51/4” 40 track and four3 ½” floppy drives also two 5 ¼” and two 3 ½” MFM hard drives, and with leads and cables took the best part of a day

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especially the weight of the expansion box’s. Later on that day on going to the Hotel to meet up with a few more Tiers I was informed by Rachael that it was okay to bring my equipment on the Thursday evening, so after our get NORMAN WITH SECOND DEMONSTRATION on SATURDAY together in the Hotel Foyer I went back home and with my Son Adrian and Daughter Caroline loaded our cars with my equipment and Anniversary balloons and arrived at the Hotel about 7pm, unloaded all items into a corner of the Gladstone function Room until the following morning and returned home with the knowledge that items were ERMANNO WITH THIRD DEMONSTRATION on SATURDAY already there. FRIDAY 2nd All started with me, my Son Adrian and Daughter Caroline arriving at Hotel at 10am to arrange the Gladstone Room into how best would suit our group, 9 tables were put around the perimeter with about 20 chairs on the inside and was informed by Rachael that if any extra were needed just to get them STEPHEN WITH FOURTH DEMONSTRATION on SATURDAY from next door conference room. Caroline got on with decorating the

ALBERT ROOM for AWARDS DINNER on SATURDAY SANDRA and KLAUS ANNOWNCING THEIR ENGAGEMENT walls with bunting and balloons and I continued to unpack my TI gear and before long our guests were arriving, Klaus and Sandra, Trevor and Sue, Berry, Wolfgang, Norman , Ronald, Fred ,

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Ermanno and Rosaline and Evan, most began placing their respective TI systems on tables and Klaus helping sort out my gear as there were quite a few boxes, not only with my stuff but a lot of Trevor’s items for Sale and Auction. With installations and decorations over, KLAUS with the FIFTH DEMONSTRATION on SATURDAY Caroline and Adrian departed for home and left us to it and before long it was 1pm and most left the conference room for the Hotel restaurant for lunch, which was buffet style and I was told I could now register for my three nights stay at the Hotel, which I did and after an excellent two course meal, we were back to the Gladstone Room at 3pm for the THE EDGAR MAUK AWARDS on SATURDAY official opening of our European Treff by Trevor and then fun with the TI and contacts for an hour until our first Demonstration by Wolfgang and then after fun again with the TI until our short trek at 6.30pm to the Brewers Faire Brocklebank Pub which incidentally had BUSY CONFERENCE ROOM on SATURDAY been under new management for the past couple of months and was only 100 metres distanc e from Hotel where our first ANNIVERSARY CUPS for PURCHASE ANNIVERSARY CAKE to be EATEN fourtee n guests had arrived and enjoyed their evening meal and drinks, we were situated in a fairly private area of the pub and a good night was had by all but was tainted by poor service and mediocre tasting meals, anyway we arrived back at base about 10.30pm and one or two still had to check in and a few of us were back in the Conference Room for another

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hour until finally calling it a day and turning in and locking the door for an end to a fruitful first day. SATURDAY 3RD After an excellent buffet style breakfast in Hotel restaurant it was back into the Gladstone conference room for our Second Demonstration by Norman and then our Third Demonstration by Ermanno and then Fun and TI Sales for an hour until 1pm then again in hotel CUTTING of ANNIVERSARY CAKE restaurant for buffet style Lunch which was as good as ever,. Group leaders and concerned guests while lunching discussed strategy for next European meetings and was confirmed by Jens and Vera that next Copenhagen in Denmark with more details in Summer issue of TI*MES, but if you are thinking about EVAN at RONALDS TI playing BUCK ROGERS going, I will be sending e-mails over the first few months of next year as details are nearing completion. Not confirmed yet but Ermanno seems to think 2017 European Treff could well be in Rome (watch this space) After lunch back into conference ONE of MANY ANNIVERSARY PANDANTS ERMANNO with DEMONSTRATION room at 3pm we had our Fourth Demonstration by our very own(what can I say about this man that hasn’t already been said), One of the stalwarts of the original early1980s TI KLAUS with 3D CONSOLE REPLICAS community here in the UK. Original Editor of TI*MES , Prolific Writer of books and magazines and Guest Speaker Stephen Shaw who’s edited article is reproduced later in this magazine. An hour later was our regular Treffen

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Auction of TI products by our very own TI*MES reporter from the Netherlands Berry Harmsen. Later the Fifth Demonstration by Klaus Lukascheck and then more fun with TI until 7pm when all 24 of us assembled in the FULL AUCTION TABLE in GLADSTONE ROOM Albert Suite Room for our Edgar Mauk Awards Dinner. Rachael Bickerton, Sales Manageress and Adam Bloor, Food and Beverage Assistant and all the staff of the Crewe Arms Hotel went out of their way to make this a most memorable occasion. As meals and wine were being enjoyed, Berry hosted the ROSS-TREVOR and NORMAN Awards and first up Stephen who was the first recipient in the category of community in the first year of presentations in the year 2000, but because of unforeseen circumstances was not able to collect his Award and on posting it to him the award went ERMANNOs 3 DIFFERENT XB MODULES missing, so as he was here with us now

WORK in PROGRESS in the GLADSTONE ROOM WORK STILL in PROGRESS it was appropriate to award him a belated award and he gladly accepted, Klaus was next to receive his award in the category of computing , which he gladly accepted, and finally, which was a total surprise I gladly received my award in the category of community , with awards over we carried on with our three course meals and a lovely red or white wine, also on this special day Klaus and Sandra announced their engagement as it was mentioned this could have been a first in the history of the European Treffs, since 2000, so at about 10.30pm after enjoying the

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evening, a few wanted to finish up back in the Gladstone room, this we did until 11.30pm and then decided to call it a day and locked the door behind us at the end of most fruitful second day. SUNDAY 4th After another excellent buffet style breakfast it was back into the Gladstone conference NORMANONE of NORMANS DURING SQUARESHIS DEMONSTRATION DEMONSTRATIONS room at 10am for our Sixth and last demonstration by Klaus Lukascheck which was a follow on from yesterdays and today he got everything working just fine and as Wolfgang had checked out he said his goodbyes, and had to be on the train back to Manchester to catch ALF, AMY, DAVID, TREVOR, FRED VIEWING DEMOs an early afternoon flight back home, so at 11.00am my Daughter Caroline, My Son Adrian and his partner Karen arrived in their respective cars to take us to Nantwich for the day out, first guests had to be allocated to particular cars and two or three took their own cars, which was a great help all round, anyway we managed all 16 guests to ERMANNO, KLAUS, WOLFGANG, STEPHEN VIEWING Nantwich , the sun was shining and we arrived at Hack Green SECRET

JET SET WILLY MODULE from USA

ALBERT ROOM for AWARDS DINNER BUNKER just before 12am and my Daughter and Son and his partner went back to Crewe and left us to it and because our party was over 9 we were able to get into the Bunker at a reduced price. The tour around the bunker which was

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fairly well signposted took about 90 minutes and we did a full circle and arrived back at the NAFFI canteen where we started from and we had already booked our light lunch , which was supplied on a buffet style table with three large tables reserved for our party, we had a lot to talk about while eating and drinking and a few purchased souvenirs, as they say time waits for no man or woman, Caroline, Adrian and Karen had arrived at 2.30pm to take us a couple of miles away to Nantwich where they once again dropped us off and they headed back SUE HOLDING ONTO BALLOONS home, and because something urgent had cropped up they took Sam and Hannah back to Crewe to get their train back home, so because of the nice weather our party now 14 strong decided to walk through the centre of Nantwich and arrived at St Mary’s church, the Building commenced in 1280 and was completed in 1390. (Interruption

SANDRA, KLAUS, FRED, BERRY, RONALD in BAR AREA due to the Black Death of 1349 – 1369). It is probable that there was an earlier Chapel on the site connected with Combermere Abbey, we were allowed inside for twenty minutes or so before an afternoon service, by now it was where we had booked in for 4pm for our evening Dinner, Originally built in the early 17th century, the building has been restored to FRONT of CREWE RAILWAY STATION from HOTEL enhance and restore many of its original features and is today a stunning hotel,

BUSY RALWAY JUNCTION behind CREWE ARMS HOTEL GIOVANIS TOP class RESTAURANT in CREWE

restaurant and bar in the heart of Cheshire.

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We arrived on time and made our way upstairs to a long table at front of building, we all had a two course meal and drinks and we could not fault standard of meals and service, and of course the building looked the part, only issue was with the bill, half had been itemised and other half not, which made it rather difficult as we STUNNING DINING ROOM in CREWE ARMSHOTEL were all paying separately, not good, but anyway by this time Caroline, Adrian and Karen had arrived to take us all back to Crewe, apart from Trevor and Sue who had to leave us in their car to travel back home as Trevor had some business to take care of the following morning. We arrived back at our Hotel about 7.30pm and some of us went straight into the EMMA at RECEPTION DESK in HOTEL Gladstone Room, and it was time to start dismantling all my systems, four consoles, two PEBs, including hard drives and floppies and cables, and monitors, also our group projector and laptops, all carefully into boxes, others doing the same, also taking the bunting down and balloons, most of the bunting was given away, we started out with ten strips of EXCELLENT DOUBLE BEDROOMS in HOTEL bunting each with nine pendants and I ended up with the last one but all went to

ADAM at the HOTEL BAR ORIGINAL FIREPLACE with FUNCTIONING FIRE in HOTEL a good cause, when Adrian had our car full with my gear, he said he would offload items into our

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THIS is the TABLE we had at the CHESHIRE CAT RESTAURANT in NANTWICH on the SUNDAY garage back home and I could stay, which I did as I had one more breakfast to have at the hotel, at about 10pm that same evening The 30th Anniversary European Treff was Officially Ended and I returned the Gladstone Room key to reception and joined Berry, Fred, Francesco and Claire, Ronald, Norman, Yens and Vera and Gerhard in the hotel bar where i had a couple of coffees and about 11.30 decided to call it a day and return to my room and the end to another fruitful third day. MONDAY 5th I was up again bright and early for breakfast and to say my goodbyes and thank you’s to the one or THIS is the SIDE ENTRANCE to the CAT two that were leaving that morning , Jens and Vera had to get away about 6am Francesco and Clair were on their way about 11am and same with Ermanno and Rosaline and Evan, so after our goodbyes I checked out of the hotel and Caroline collected me by car I went home for the first time since Friday morning, and THIS is the UPSTAIRS RESTING AREA in the CAT arranged to meet up with the friends who were checking out on Tuesday morning, so we could all meet up at the Crewe Arms for the last time and make our way to Giovanni’s Italian Restaurant on the Monday evening , which was only a 100metre walk away, I had already made the reservation over the phone for 7pm for Myself, Berry, Fred, Gerhard, Ronald,

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Norman, Klaus and Sandra. A really good night was had by all with an excellent two course meal and of course beer and wine,

THIS is the COLD WAR SECRET BUNKER in operation from 1945 through till 1993 we arrived back at the Hotel about 10pm, Klaus and Sandra turned in for the night as they had an early start in t he morning, so Berry, Gerhard, Fred, Ronald, Norman and Myself had a couple of coffees at the hotel bar and after an hour or so, it was time for me to get home on my cycle, which was parked outside. I said my goodbyes to one and all and wished them safe journeys and promised to ONE YOUNGSTER TRYING OUT THE SECRET BUNKER PRIVATE LINE see them all again in twelve months time in Copenhagen if not before , I returned home and just relaxed in the chair as though a big weight had been lifted from my shoulders, even though the weekend had been in the planning stage over the last twelve months, I didn’t realise how well it had gone until now. And I’m sure everyone else felt the same.

This review of our European Treffen in Crewe Cheshire UK in October 2015 was Written and Edited by David Caine with Photographs by Berry Harmsen and Wolfgang Bertch and produced with the help of Microsoft Word 2007

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Brief thoughts on the 2015 Treff at Crewe: Getting into the hotel was difficult as it had a dark, well hidden, "front" door, unsignposted and almost invisible from the street. After walking round the hotel twice I got in via the back door. Reception was unmanned but I finally found the Conference Room.

Here I am giving my own interpretation of the ti994a Story from 1979 to present day Beautifully decorated with balloons, penants, and so many TI consoles.... and some people who had TI computers. And a nice Treff Cake. There were a variety of consoles with differing video outputs and a huge variety of extended basics. The PEBs present all seemed to be the mark 2's, with the rocker on-off switch, whereas mine have the push button switch. I was greatly taken by the console with the mega module plugged in and a tiny expansion system with printer port, expansion memory, and compact flash hard drive. Now if I could have bought one of those modules plus the expansion unit with the compact flash populated with the disks from the Jim Peterson Public Domain library plus the disks from TI Gamebase, with a couple of extra cf cards with the same content (they have a fairly short lifespan), that would have had me spending real money on TI hardware again. I did buy a souvenir mug and a box of the first three years or so of magazines from East Anglia Region. Their use of PagePro makes OCR almost impossible, and it will be a long hard slog retyping it for web content - and I have so many TI*MES still to add, and some poorly printed articles to retype and add to TI*MES already on the web. Plus some TI-Lines... no shortage of

14 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter jobs to do (did I mention working on photographs and digitising old records and tapes....). Norman Rokke from the USA gave a presentation on his colour switch and maze programs for the TI- these simple little puzzles are very much the sort of simple program I like (but when you've solved them....). I had a lovely chat with Fred Kaal, whose TI DIR is so important to me. One of those programs that you really do appreciate, and it was nice to be (IMAGE TEST) able to tell him so directly. Following the recent unfortunate death of Tony Knerr, a candle was lit in his memory. At the Saturday evening meal Klaus Lukascheck and Sandra Strommer (both of Austria) announced their engagement. Congratulations! It was a pleasant surprise to see several younger folk at the gathering. The hotel staff were exceptionally helpful and attentive. It is a pity they have to take such an aggressive line on car parking to avoid their car park being taken over by station users - the hotel is hard by the railway station, and vibrated when the heavy trains went past! Internal signposting was simply lacking, and for a hotel that offers food, the offer was less than low key, with no indications outside of a restaurant available - although the food looked fine. It looked as if the hotel was more geared to group bookings for coach tours, weddings, business meetings and so on, which is probably where the money is.

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Unfortunately I didn't take any notes of what was going on, was only there one day, and cannot do justice to other presentations, but here is mine, given at about 3pm on Saturday. program I mentioned below by Trevor Stevens called "Think of a number". Our visitor from Italy, Ermanno Betori, had in his bag one paperback book to read whilst travelling. It was called.... and dealt with mysterious coincidences (or were they!). Spooky. stephen's rambling.... I first met computers at work in 1969, typing in data and enquiries to a remote terminal for an IBM360- no vdu, just a printer and keyboard. My leisure interests included games and recreational maths and I exchanged letters with a number of well known people in these areas. My first "computer" was an expensive toy, the Sinclair Cambridge programmable calculator, which I hardly used before it stopped working just after the guarantee expired. Then came home computers, initially these were quite costly, and this time I explored what was available and what I wanted, before spending any money. I saw my choice as bet wee n Commodore Pet, Tandy TRS80, Apple-1 and TI99/4. Computers from Atari and Mattel were not yet available. I finally chose the TI, as it seemed more suited for someone who wanted to program and someone who was not too interested in fiddling with hardware (the plug and play approach). And TI were the only firm to respond to my letter of enquiry. TI then had some retail shops and their Manchester shop lent me - free of charge- and delivered and collected- free of charge-

16 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter an NTSC console with an NTSC monitor for a weekend. I cannot think of any modern day manufacturer going to these lengths. I was in contact with TI European Consumer Division in Bedford from early days ( my first letter to TI was September 1980 ) and chose to wait for the release of the PAL console, but joined the TI User Group from the outset in late 1980. I bought my TI99/4 PAL console from TI directly, the invoice was dated June 1981 and for the console TI99/4, Version 100 Extended Basic, the ther mal prin ter 32k ram, a disk controller and a 90k 5.25 inch disk drive, I paid £1700. Allowing for the increase in RPI, at 2015 prices that would be £5,900 which would buy some computing power today. Extended Basic Vn 100 was not to be available until August 1981. Another early member was Peter Brooks, who bought his console before I bought mine- and he bought an NTSC 99/4 console and NTSC monitor. Peter is now in California and has no TI material. The initial UK User Group TI Home was run by Paul Dicks, whose address was given to me by TI in October 1980. The first magazine, initially just called TI Home then later TI Home TIdings was produced by Paul with the first issue dated February 1981. Paul had professional dealings with TI as a commercial user of their larger computers. It has been reported that TI were directly involved with at least two issues of the magazine. From issue 2 the magazine had a disclaimer at the insistance of TI - "TIHOME is not affiliated with Texas Instruments in any way and is supported only by the group members".

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The name of Stephen Shaw appeared in issue two of TI HOME, dated March 81, and appeared regularly after. This was some months before I obtained a console, invoiced to me in June 81.. My upgrade to Ext Bas Vn 110 was courtesy of TI - the only payment I ever received from them, in return for having the most listings published in UK magazines, mostly C&VG, who paid ten pounds per program.

One of these was the game of Pompeii. This was based upon a set of rules written by Robert Bell, a Canadian who settled in the NE of England. He found fame as a games archeologist and had a strong interest in pottery from NE England. I have an autographed rule sheet for Pompeii, setting out the history of the game, which was pub lis hed by Whittlecraft, better known for their traditional wooden games, eg chess and backgammon boards. It did not sell too many copies but gave me a lovely game to emulate on the TI. In Gamebase I find two versions of Pompeii in Italian. My name has been removed and there is no mention of Mr Bell or C&VG but apart from the Italian translation, the code is all mine. In the early days there was a lack of software in the UK and so, slowly, Stainless Software was born, obtaining licences from some US software houses to copy and sell their programs in the UK. And offering distribution to UK programmers on a royalties- only basis (not a single cash payment). Stainless covered the

18 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter costs and paid them royalties that were relatively generous.(more info if requested). Most Stainless programs did not have the name Stainless in the code, only on the cassette label. One early programmer who had a program published in C&VG was Mr R Matthews who went on to run TX Software. He died very early on. One of his programs was sent in to Stainless by a Cornish fish frier, as his own work. No reply was sent but Mr Matthews widow was advised (obviously she could do nothing) and others were told- the person concerned was already known to be a software pirate. I was therefore horrified to find the website Gameshelf has Mr Matthews program Battlefront with my name against it. I have sent two emails asking for my name to be removed, which have been ignored. I have checked the code which does have my name inserted, but without my knowledge or consent. The person who did this died many years ago. Battlefront was written entirely by Mr R Matthews. My big claim to gaming fame is with Video Games 1 game called Pinball (although it is nothing of the sort). Whilst waiting for my Extended Basic Vn 100 module... My high score was over ten million, which had rather more digits than the display was built for, but well done TI, the program did not crash. The game of Black Box has been widely emulated on computers for many many years. Not many people know that the game was invented by Dr Eric Solomon. A commercial physical game was licenced from Dr Solomon and marketed by Waddingtons. Stainless Software published a version of this game and it seems

19 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter to have been virtually the ONLY software version that was properly licenced with consent from Waddingtons and Dr Solomon, and gave credit to Dr Solomon. Later - possibly triggered by my enquiry - another software company claimed to have an exclusive licence from Waddingtons, however Stainless Software had been there first and may have had the first game licenced from Waddingtons. Waddingtons were by 1922 manufacturing playing cards and went on to board games, in the UK distributing Monopoly, Buccaneer, Campaign, Cluedo, Mine a Million, Risk, Scoop!, Sorry, Subbuteo, Totopoly and many others. Video games reduced sales of boxed games and Waddingtons was bought by American company Hasbro. Waddington's name remains on playing card packs but these are now manufactured by a company called "Winning Moves". Across the world an older playing card manufacturer from 1889 was better able to meet the computer storm and still manufactures Nintendo Hanafuda playing cards which you may buy from Amazon.

Stainless offered a simple little program simply called FISH by Bill Kuhl, who recalled those days recently on his website. FISH required just one key to operate it. Stainless also published a number of programs written by Mark Sumner, who used the funds obtained to take time out to write a number of books, one series of which was made into a tv series. So if you bought one of 3D STALKERS | CRAZY CAVER | KEYS OF THE CASTLE | PS PESTEROIDS | SPACE RESCUE | SPY'S DEMISE | STARPROBE 99 | WALLABY | WONKAPILLAR | OCTAL (he wrote others) then you contributed towards the creation of a tv series (The Chronicle).

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Michael Capobianco of Not Polyoptics, many of whose programs Stainless sold also wrote a Science Fiction book or two. He served as President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) from 1996 -1998 and again from 2007-2008. He received the Service to SFWA Award in 2004. Their early TI Basic programs were mostly strategy based and rather good. Returning to the UK User Group the last issue of TIdings was dated March 1983, Then nothing was heard until... Subscribers to TIdings found their subscriptions had been passed to TIHCUC Ltd, a private company run by Ray Hodges Associates, a PR company (still trading). Their thin magazine which only ran for five issues did not meet the needs of many of the TIdings subscribers. The first magazine was dated Autumn 1983. The last issue was Summer 1985. It is likely that Paul Dicks had been overwhelmed by increasing numbers of TI Users and that TI had jumped in to rescue the situation, possibly making a one off payment to Ray Hodges, but we don't know that, it was all terribly secret. The fate of this thin magazine was probably sealed when in November 1983 TI announced their withdrawal from home computing. Fortunately, an owner in Brighton, Clive Scally, set up TI Exchange to foster the exchange of modules between TI owners, and produced a small magazine- first issue Summer 83, after the last issue of TIdings and before the first issue of TIHCUC. It was just in time for TIHOME subscribers looking for a magazine with some content to start subscribing and so TI*MES replaced TIdings. Not as an official transfer or handover, but a disorganised mass movement of UK TI owners.

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In August 1983, also before the first issue of TIHCUC magazine, a TI retailer in Maidstone, Galaxy, set up a quarterly magazine which ran for at least five issues commencing August 1983. Lantern Software probably provided the editorial. 1984 saw another retailer launch a magazine, called 99/4a, this was the TI99/4a specialist Parco in Devon. This diminished in size from A4 to A5 later on, but ran bi-monthly for at least eight issues.

1984 was a good year for magazines, Peter Brooks set up his own magazine under the initial title of TI Lines from Oxon TI Users Group, which was initially more or less the sole output of Peter himself. Peter also worked closely with Gordon Pitt of the West Midlands TI User Group, who organised regular user meetings at Bloxwich. Peter later renamed his magazine "International TI Lines a production of the International TI User Group" but it was still just Peter Brooks. I have copies up to November 1987. If anyone has later copies they could share with me? November 1984 saw Here I am at the Stainless Kiosk in 1984 the great TI99/4a meeting at the Ritz in Manchester, one very rainy day, and a huge number attended, well over a thousand. It was the

22 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter first organised meeting of UK TI owners (apart from meeting up at the TI stand at the London computer shows). By 1985 Stainless sales were slipping and I obtained consent from as many programmers as possible to send out their programs as freeware, which is why so many still survive. Most programs which were only sold by Stainless do not mention Stainless in the program code- it was only on the cassette label. This makes it difficult to identify them now, but I have an alphabetical list on Stainless programs on my website, with screen grabs where possible.

A number of third party hardware items appeared, but only one turned out to be of value, the excellent joysticks made by Howard Greenburg of Arcade Hardware. The MBX unit proved a hit with my youngster but the Super Sketch tablet device has not been used. I have a German mouse but have never used it, and several other items which have been a complete waste of funds.

My original FX80 printer, used to print the MS for my book, still works, more than three decades later. And you can still buy new ribbons for it.

In 1986, Parco Magazine V2N3 had a listing by Trevor Stevens "Think of a number"

In May 87 Clive passed the group over to an elected committee with myself as one of the members. From the initial committee I can only track down myself. In 1987, V2 N4 Parco Magazine (last?) David Caine reported high scores on Q Bert 24,700 and Frogger- 12,620!

Also around May 1987, a US Air Force employee in England started a regional group based upon regular members meetings, but also producing a monthly magazine. This was Scott Copeland who with his then wife JoAnn managed the East Anglia Region TI Users Group. In 2000 at the 13th Tref, an award was made to me - but I didn't have a passport and didn't attend, apparently the award was lost in the post! and only in 2013 I discovered on the internet that I had been given the award. (At the evening meal on Saturday I

23 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter finally received my award, just 15 years later. Many thanks to all concerned). In 2013 I was added to the 99ers Hall of Fame, many thanks to Mark Wills. Today I have a website with 189 pages of which 109 are TI related. The TI section gets few visitors- about 20% of site visitors. I have added many articles from UK TI magazines and as much of the Stainless catalogue as I can find. I have a 17 year old PC running FreeDOS and have squeezed in a Linux OS as well. I use a number of TI emulators including the older MESS PC99, PC Emulate, V9t9, and TI Sim. My TI console still works too. I am adding older TI material to the internet, and where possible adding some important TI related web pages to historical safety with archive.org. After some years waiting I finally had the ability to add material to the long neglected 99erpedia website and have added several articles and some links to the important TI websites that I find. We can thank Michael Zapf for the resurrection of the long dormant resource. MESS was significantly redesigned in 2005 (Vn 0.98 on) - the newly designed Mess, amended to cover newer computers with greater requirements, lost backward compatability and individual computer emulations had to be worked on again to make them work with Mess again. If there was no maintainer for that computer, it was no longer emulated in MESS. The new MESS does not support DOS. Special kudos to Michael Zapf for struggling past the barriers the MESS developers created to keep a TI emulation going in the new MESS). Michael has owned a TI console about as long as I have, since 1982.

======Notes on the Treff Saturday October 3rd 2015...... SATURDAY 10:00 -11:00 Demo by Norman Rokke 11:00 -12:00 Demo by Ermanno Betori 12:00 -13:00 Sale of TI Products 13:00 -15:00 Lunch at the hotel and meeting of the club leaders. 15:00 -16:00 Demo By Guest Speaker Stephen Shaw 16:00 -17:00 Auction of TI products 17:00 -18:00 Demonstration by Klaus Lukascheck 18:00 -19:00 TI Fun and Contacts. 19:00 -22:00 Treffen dinner in hotel with the Edgar Mauk Awards 22:00 -23.00 Closing of the second day

======

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Attendees for Saturday..... David Caine UK Trevor and Sue Stevens UK Fred Kaal NL Francesco and Claire Lama UK Sam Castledene and Hannah UK Stephen Shaw UK Berry Harmsen NL Wolfgang Bertsch DE Ronald Kalwij NL Klaus Lukascheck and Sandra Strommer AU Gerhard Eichberger AU Jens-Eike Hartwig and Vera Jorgensen DE Norman Rokke USA Ermanno and Rosaline Betori and Son Evan IT Alf Cooper and Daughter Amy UK Ross Bennett UK total 24 inclcluding: UK 11 NL 3 AU 3 DE 3 IT 3 USA 1 ======GENERAL NOTES.....

Tony Knerr ------has died Intrigue Software --Dennis Webb--- programmer son Martin (now in Brazil?) He converted the Sega game Outrun for the C64 and was paid bundles. Peter Brooks------now in LA but has no TI material Scott and JoAnn Copeland ------last seen in Florida (divorced) Barry Traver------moved from published address due to deteriorating health. Mike Wright------in poor health but soldiering on Christine Computing------Ian Godman still around, but not interested in contact, ------Christine killed some years ago Timeless Software------Ian Martin killed many years ago TX Software------R Matthews died some time ago Sean O'Brien (mentioned in TI*MES and TI-Lines)------now in New York via Tokyo, has full TI kit. Arcade Hardware------Not heard of Howard Greenberg Lantern Software------nothing heard Parco / New Day ------not heard of Frances Roland Trueman ------went on to write programs for the Commadore Amiga Computer. Will McGovern ------is in the USA and has some computer patents to his name ======Stainless Software in 1980s : Royalties on average paid at 40% of the cash stainless received, after deducting 20% dealer discount and 10% sales tax (actually paid to the tax man)- (or another way, 29% of gross price). eg Program sold for £8, author received £2.32; dealer discoun £1.60, tax actually paid 80p stainless share = 3.28 to pay forcassette, cassette label case, case inlay, docs ,advertising, and shipping (and a little left over for me, to pay formy time- real-time tape copying to order! ) Stephen Shaw

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British Rail Advanced Passenger Train APT-E & APT-P The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was an experimental tilting high speed train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s, for use on the West Coast Main Line, which contained a lot of curves. Notable among numerous technical advancements was the active tilting system, which the APT pioneered and has since appeared on other designs around the world. Other features of the APT such as the hydrokinetic braking, used to stop the train within existing separations, have not been adopted. The experimental version APT-E achieved a new British railway speed record when on 10 August 1975 it hit 152.3 mph (245.1 km/h).

The introduction into service of the Advanced Passenger Train was to be a three-stage project. Phase 1, the development of an experimental APT, the APT-E, was completed. Phase 2, the introduction of three prototype trains, known as the APT-P, into revenue service on the Glasgow- London route, enjoyed only limited service due to bad publicity. Phase 3, the introduction of the Squadron fleet designated APT-S, did not occur.

The APT suffered from delays between the APT-E and APT-P, and then a lengthy series of in- service problems when the APT-P started testing. As these delays grew, the programme was dismissed as a white elephant and every minor problem was heavily covered in the press. It gathered a reputation that led to politicians wishing to distance themselves from the fray. Further funding for service entry became increasingly difficult to find, and the project eventually ground to a halt.

BackgroundIn the mid to late 20th century, British Rail express services compared unfavourably with France's TGV and Japan's Shinkansen. Experience with increasing the speed of passenger services had shown that reduced journey times could produce a significant increase in passenger numbers. The East Coast Main Line was APT-Experimental in Sidings at Sheldon County Durham UK largely straight and suited to high speeds, but other lines, specifically the West Coast Main Line (WCML) from London to Glasgow, were not straight enough to support high speeds with conventional equipment. Lateral forces would be just too high around curves; passengers would not be able to stand upright easily, and things would move on tables. Because slower trains also use the same tracks, superelevation (banking or "canting" of the track around curves) could only be utilized to enable speeds up to 125 mph (201 km/h). In order to permit a top speed of 155 mph (249 km/h), and thereby cut journey times, British Rail's engineers at the Derby Research Division developed an advanced active tilting technology, using hydraulic rams controlled by spirit level sensors to tilt the passenger cars into the curves so that no lateral forces would be felt British Rail deliberately commissioned two young engineers with no experience in trains or railways to head the development of the project. One had worked in missiles and the other for the National Coal Board. They worked in isolation to the in-house British Rail engineering team. The reason for total outsiders to

26 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter develop the trains was that they would have no preconceived rail engineering prejudices and would approach the problem with a fresh open mind. These fresh minds brought to trains methods and technology from other advanced fields. They brought science into British railways, an industry that from its paradigm shift in innovative technology in the Victorian times, had progressed at a slow pace since then in comparison to other countries. Not only was the train designed to tilt but it was also articulated and had hydrokinetic (water turbine) brakes. The latter feature is often overlooked but was in fact just as significant as the tilting concept, because it enabled the train to stop within the existing signal spacings. During extensive testing on the West Coast Main Line, the hydrokinetic brakes repeatedly achieved their predicted performance. The fault in the system was that the hydrokinetic braking forces fell away rapidly as speed fell below 25 mph. At that speed the system was designed to apply hydraulic pressure to conventional friction brakes on the axles of each bogie on the train. The train manufacturer produced these bogies in bulk long before the train vehicles were ready. Their friction brakes were tested independently with water before they were stored but the storage period was so long that the internal coating on the hydraulic cylinders corroded. When the trains were tested in service, this corrosion caused a loss of brake pressure on every axle. On test, this caused the train to take nearly as long to slow from 25 mph to a standstill as it did to slow from 125 mph to 25 mph. During commissioning, because of this and other development issues, every axle on the trains was modified and exchanged. The shortcomings of using engineers with no experience of trains was exposed when the APT-P began commissioning tests. The stainless steel welds cracked on the hoses carrying fluid to the hydrokinetic brakes on the axles. Although this was rapidly solved, the air systems on the trains were not designed to deal with the water that compressed air contains. On conventional trains, vehicles were designed such that air APT-Production InterCity 125 in Crewe Heritage Centre pipes sloped towards drain valves and compressor air receivers were fitted with automatic drain valves. This reduced the water in the system and ensured that it was not trapped in pipework or critical equipment. On the APT-P, air pipe runs were tortuous, accidentally designing in multiple trap points for water. The results were first experienced during freezing conditions during West Coast Main Line commissioning, operating from Shields Depot, Glasgow. Air-powered door opening equipment froze and it was clear that the air controls on the hydrokinetic braking system would be compromised. Although the commissioning team engineers sought and found a Westinghouse designed solution that would eliminate the water being produced by the compressors, the design team would not accept the solution, stating that the problem would not occur with a full train formation, as opposed to the shorter formation used in commissioning. The seed was sown for the disastrous demonstration run from Glasgow, bearing national journalists, when the train failed shortly after leaving Glasgow due to a frozen brake system. The project never recovered. It was only discovered at the APT-P commissioning stage that parts of the West Coast Main Line had been built in such a way that, if two APT-P trains with their tilt systems failed and the carriages stuck in the inward tilted position met, they would strike one another. The civil engineers had built the railway with dynamic envelopes too small for the APT. The effect was

27 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter not seen with conventional trains since, without tilt, their movements stayed well within the dynamic envelope.Some of the senior managers in British Rail at the time were unwilling to commit to a single project, and so initiated a parallel project to design a train based on conventional technology as a stopgap. This was the High Speed Train (HST), which was also marketed under the InterCity 125 name. The same senior managers withheld experienced engineering resources from the APT project, using them instead to press ahead as swiftly as possible with what they saw as a conventional rival to APT. The HST was a successful design, and is still in use 30 years later. In 1972, the APT-E, a gas turbine-powered experimental testbed, was constructed. This was only four cars in length; two power cars, one at each end and two 'passenger' cars full of instrumentation. The experimental train APT-E having proved the concept, British Rail moved to build three prototype Class 370 APT-P trains. Gas turbines had been chosen for their light weight compared to diesel engines but Leyland had ceased production and development and no other was suitable. Thus the new APT-P and APT-S trains were to be electrically powered and so restricted to electrified track. The hydrokinetic brake system was successful and reliable on the APT-E but for the APT-P design, it was decided APT-P InterCity 125 driving controls to abandon the oil-filled hydraulic system and design an all-new system filled with water glycol solution, to reduce costs. The exhaustion of the corrosion inhibitor in the static hydraulic lines of parts of the water glycol system was to cause multiple problems with the brakes during commissioning.

The APT-P trains were designed as two half-trains with twin power cars in the middle, sharing one pantograph. There was a passage through the power cars but it was noisy, cramped and not permitted for passengers. Therefore, each end of the train had to duplicate facilities. There were a number of reasons for this design compromise. Two power cars were necessary to maintain the design speeds over the northern banks with 12 coaches. Normally these would be situated at the front and rear of the train (as with the HST and TGV etc.) but, due to the design of the overhead line, a "wave" was set up in it by the front pantograph, thus causing problems for current collection from the rear unit. The obvious answer was an on-board 25 kV "roof-line" link to the rear power car but this was considered infeasible at the time. The final option was to put both power cars at one end of the train but, at the high speeds (and with the tilt feature), concerns were raised over excessive buckling forces when the train was being propelled. The eventual decision to use two non-articulated power cars in the centre of the train allowed one pantograph to be used with a 25 kV link between the two power cars. Both power cars were equipped with pantographs, with one lowered in service. Power was supplied through ASEA thyristor equipment, supplying four 1 MW DC traction motors mounted in each power car. The traction motors transmitted their power through internal gearboxes, cardan shafts and quill final drives, minimising the unsprung weight on the axles.

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Although all auxiliary equipment such as lighting, air conditioning and air compressors was powered by motor alternators, from the 25 kV overhead line, it was recognised that if there were to be an overhead line failure conditions in the passenger vehicles would quickly become unsafe and unbearable. Each driving van trailer i.e. the leading and trailing vehicles, was equipped with a diesel-alternator generator capable of supplying the minimum requirement of auxiliary power. The diesel-alternators were started using air motors powered from the train's air system, since the APT carried few batteries.

The APT was designed for faster running than existing trains, and over the same track. The higher speed limits were provided to the driver by way of a transponder-based cab display called "C-APT". A radio beam from the train caused a track-mounted transponder to return the current line speed for an APT, which would then be displayed in a cab instrument. These sealed, unpowered transponders were placed at intervals of no more than 1 km. Approaching speed restrictions were provided at the appropriate distance, along with an audible alert; failure to acknowledge these alerts would result in an automatic brake application. C-APT was driven by a redundant onboard computer system using Intel 4004 microprocessors. The track units were essentially the same as the modern French Balise beacons Demise

APT-E Power Car PC2 and Trailer Car TC1

APT-P Driving Trailer Second (DTS) unit, in revised APT branding, with a black "mask" around the driver's window

APT-P Non-Driving Motor (NDM) unit, with Stone Faiveley AMBR pantograph

Political and managerial pressure to show results led to the three APT-P trains being launched in 1981 when, in hindsight, they were not ready for service; many technical problems persisted and reliability was not high. Predictably, the train suffered highly visible problems. Two APT-Ps were intended to be available for service at any given time, with the third out of service for overhaul and maintenance. The APT was often jokingly referred to by passengers as the 'Accident Prone Train' because of this.Members of the press riding the first demonstration train apparently reported high levels of motion sickness and this caused considerable bad publicity; though it has been suggested by some, including APT designer Prof. Alan Wickens, that the 'motion sickness' suffered by the press may have had more to do with them over-indulging in BR's "liquid hospitality". None of the

29 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter other passengers on this demonstration run or subsequent runs noticed the problem. The commissioning team, however, was familiar with the feeling of motion sickness. The tilt sensors on each vehicle, which determined when and by how much a vehicle should tilt on curves, detected the need for tilting too late, so that a smooth transition into tilt, unnoticed by passengers, didn't occur. The tilt system didn't "lean into the curve" as it approached. Effectively passengers experienced the curve, then the tilt cut in, lagging the curve. The eyes could see turning but the body did not feel it in synchronisation; moving the tilt sensor control to the preceding vehicle and reducing the tilt by a few degrees so that the curves could be felt cured this.

On one test run with the press, certain units of the train 'stuck' tilted to one side for parts of the journey.The first "public" APT-P run on 7 December 1981, from Glasgow Central to London Euston, was successful. Even so, British Rail played safe by running a scheduled service out of Levers of Exeter West signal box as preserved at Crewe Glasgow some 15 minutes later. Some APT-P cars suffered tilt failures during the return trip out of London and this was widely publicised by the media. The extremely cold weather also caused problems with the brakes freezing. The trains were withdrawn from revenue service four days later. This highly visible failure was eventually to prove terminal for the project.

The APT-P trains were quietly reintroduced into service in mid-1984 and operated regularly, the problems having been apparently corrected but the political and managerial will to continue the project and build the projected APT-S production vehicles had evaporated.

One APT-P set was kept at Glasgow Shields Depot and found use once or twice as an "EMU" to take journalists from Glasgow Central to Anderston railway station and back, for the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. A second APT-P was stored in a siding behind Crewe Works. The "Glasgow" APT-P and the third APT-P were scrapped very quietly without publicity.

Williams notes that work continued on a new variant, the APT-U, and that the project was later retitled InterCity 225, perhaps to distance it from the bad publicity surrounding the APT-P. The Mark 4 coach design that was introduced as part of the new IC225 sets for the East Coast Main Line electrification is a direct descendant of the APT-U, and the coach was designed for the retrofitting of the tilt mechanism, although this was never implemented. The Class 91 locomotives that power the IC225s also take many features from the APT-P power cars, including body- rather than bogie-mounted traction motors to reduce unsprung load, and having the transformer below rather than on top of the underframe to reduce the centre of gravity. Unlike the APT-P power cars, though, they were never intended to tilt.

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APT today. The second APT-P unit is now on display at Crewe Heritage Centre and can be seen from trains passing on the adjacent WCML. On 19 October and 20 October 2013 the APT-P unit at Crewe was tilted for the first time since the 1980s. Legacy The APT power car technology was imported almost wholesale, though without the tilt, into the design of the Class 91 locomotives.

The APT vehicles were largely constructed using welded aluminium extrusions, rather than the then more conventional stressed skin steel monocoque. The use of aluminium in railway vehicle construction is now almost universal and apart from the tilting systems is one of the more successful technologies trialed on the APT.

While tilting trains had been in development in other countries for some years, and even seen service, so-called 'pendular tilt' had not been particularly satisfactory. The designs of the APT 'powered tilt' carriages were sold to Fiat Ferroviaria, which exploited the technology in the design of the second generation of the functionally similar

Pendolino trains, coupled with an in-house Crewe Railway Station electronic control system (first generation systems had been in service since 1976). Italian Pendolino systems incorporating original APT technology have since been sold internationally, including the British Class 390 Pendolino introduced on the West Coast Main Line from late 2003 onwards, culminating in September 2004 with the introduction of a full passenger timetable, with tilting enabled from Manchester and Birmingham to London Euston. The introduction of the Squadron fleet designated APT-S did not occur as had been originally envisaged. The APT project succumbed to an insufficient political will in the United Kingdom to persist in solving the teething difficulties experienced with the many immature technologies necessary for a ground breaking project of this nature. The decision not to proceed was made against a backdrop of negative public perceptions shaped by media coverage of the time. The APT is acknowledged as a milestone in the development of the current generation of tilting high speed trains. 25 years later on an upgraded infrastructure the Class 390 Pendolinos now match the APT's scheduled timings. The London to Glasgow route by APT (1980/81 timetable) was 4hrs 10min, the same time as the fastest Pendolino timing (December 2008 timetable). In 2006, on a one off non-stop run for charity, a Pendolino completed the Glasgow to London journey in 3hrs 55min, whereas the APT completed the opposite London to Glasgow journey in 3hrs 52min in 1984.

Text and Photos from Wikipedia @2015 edited by David Caine The reasoning behind the inclusion of this writeup in TI*MES was the fact that Crewe Town was actually named AFTER the railway junction and the Crewe Heritage Centre which was closed at the time of our Treff Meeting has the InterCity 125 APT from 1980 on permanent display. The first tilting passenger train in the world to go into production, albeit limited

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These two pages taken from the Hack Green Brochure

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ATTENDEES for our 30th ANNIVERSARY TREFFEN in the Best Western Crewe Arms Hotel on October 2,3,4, 2015

Here is the complete list of TI. Users, Wives, Partners Girlfriends and Children who were actually on site in the Gladstone Conference room over this wonderfull weekend and in no particular order all 24 of them

Klaus Lukascheck and Girlfriend------Demo Speaker------Austria Sandra Strommer------Austria Francesco Lama and Wife------Group Module/Disk------UK Claire Lama------UK Jens-Eike Hartwig and Partner------Group Chairman------Denmark Vera Luciaribeiro Jorgensen------Denmark Ermanno Betori and Wife------Demo Speaker------Italy Rosalene and Son Evan------Italy Norman Rokke------Demo Speaker------USA Trevor Stevens and Wife------Group Chairman------UK Sue Stevens------UK David Caine------Group Editor------UK Berry Harmsen------Speaker & Editor & Group Chairman------Netherlands Ronald Kalwij------General Secretary------Netherlands Fred Kaal------Group Hardware------Netherlands Wolfgang Bertch------Group Software------Germany Sam Castledene and Partner------UK Hannah------UK Gerhard Eichberger------Austria Stephen Shaw ------Guest Speaker for One Day Only------UK Ross Bennett------Invited Guest for One Day Only------UK Alf Cooper and Daughter------for One Day Only------UK Amy Cooper------for One Day Only------UK

With special thank you to Trevor, Francesco, Berry and not forgetting my Family, Pauline my Wife, Caroline my Daughter Delena my Grandaughter, Adrian my Son and last but not least Adrians Partner Karen, without whome this Special 30th Anniversarry Treffen might never have taken place

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BREAKDOWN of SPENDS and PROFIT over our 30th European Anniversary Treffen Weekend Here is the breakdown of money from our weekend get together on Friday Saturday and Sunday 2nd 3rd and 4th October 2015 in Crewe. We ended up with £465.60 in Total and the breakdown of that is as follows. SATURDAY WINE...... £95.00 profit of £5.00 BUNKER LUNCH...... £49.60 HOTEL ENTRANCE FEE...... £105.00 all profit ANNIVERSARY CUPS...... £90.00 profit of £10.00 SALES...... £88.00 all profit AUCTION...... £38.00 all profit TOTAL ...... £465.60... From that I had to deduct: BUNKER LUNCH and ANNIVERSARY CUPS and SATURDAY WINE as i had already payed for them on my Credit Card, so i was left with ...... HOTEL ENTRANCE FEE ...... £105.00 ...... SALES...... £88.00 ...... AUCTION...... £38.00 ...... ANNIVERSARY CUPS profit...... £10.00 ……………….….SATURDAY WINE profit ………….…....£5.00 TOTAL ...... £246.00…

Minus My Budget For The Treff: DLP PROJECTOR...... £70 TRAVELING ...... £25 TELEPHONE...... £10 COPYING...... £25 HOTEL FOR 3 NIGHTS AT HALF PRICE...... £60 TOTAL...... £190.00…. Therefore £246.00 minus £190.00 = total …………………….....…...... … £56.00…

WHICH LEAVES A CLEAR PROFIT of £56 Altogether on the SATURDAY there were a total of 24 people in the Conference room including young Evan 21 payed Hotel Entrance fee as Stephen Shaw and Ross Bennett and young Evan were not asked to pay. 15 purchased Anniversary Cups were sold at a cost of £6 and 16 were made at cost of £5 each. 19 people contributed £5.00 each for Wine at Awards Dinner. 16 people payed £7.50 each entrance fee to BUNKER plus £3.10 Lunch 14 people went to the Cheshire Cat in Nantwich on Sunday. ………….………...……. £56.00 has gone into our group PayPal Account David Caine 31/10/15

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On November 12, 1983, the first annual TI Faire was held in the Triton College Centre in River Grove. The Faire was organized by the Chicago TI User Group (CTIUG) and took place two weeks after Texas Instruments announced it dropped its home computer line, an event that became known as "Black Friday" to all TI99ers. An estimated 1,000 attendees came to the first Chicago Faire.

This year the Chicago TI User Group organized the 33rd version of the Faire on Saturday October 3rd. The Friday evening before the Faire we had a gathering in the pub and restaurant of Tommy Nevin. The majority of the pub visitors stayed in the University Plaza hotel, just on the other site of the street. It was a nice evening with beer, pub food and the meeting of old TI friends. The group of 16 early birds had a wonderful TI evening. The next day, Saturday, October 3rd, was the day of the Chicago Faire. In the main hall of the Municipal Library of Evanston, Hal Shanafield opened the Faire and gave information about the program. He also memorised the death of Tony Knerr. Berry Harmsen (TI-GG Holland) opened the row of speakers with his yearly report of ‘The TI-99 in Europe’. He showed photo’s of the TI meetings in Birkenau and Crewe and gave information about the program of next year. Then the main European event (the 31st European Treffen) will be in Copenhagen Denmark. The next speaker was Norman Rokke (photo) of Sioux Falls. He showed us his TI puzzle game, written in Exbas with E/A routines, called Flip Over. This game will be published on the website: TI Game Shelf. Here you can find an older puzzle game of Norman called: Sliding Block Puzzles. Norman has a lot of ideas for new puzzle games on the TI-99/4A

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Our friend Klaus Lukaschek from Vienna demonstrated his new program Web99: a PC program written in C. The idea of this program is in three different areas: get rid of duplicate files; make your TI files searchable and access and manage your TI files from your TI-99. For running Web99 you need a RS232 cable between TI-99 and PC. You can run your TI file with an emulator or on your TI-99 by RS232 transfer. Lee Stewart was next and gave us the latest information of the cartridge with the program language fbForth (=file based). Lee made a series of tutorials with the name ‘Getting to know fbForth 2.0’. These lessons are available on the Atari Age site. Lee Stewart made also an comprehensive comparison between fbForth and Turbo Forth, while he ran these programs simultaneously with Classic99. His fbForth is based on the original program of Texas Instruments, while Turbo Forth is programmed from scratch by Mark Robert Wills. After the speech of Lee it was time for the traditional group photo of the visitors of the Chicago Faire. There were 25 visitors this year in Evanston; 20 of them are on the group photo. Jim Fetzner and Jon Guidry presented us the information of their cartridge boards. The different sized boards can be distinguished from each other by their colour. Till now there are: 2048k ROM cartridge board (yellow) 512k ROM cartridge board (red) 512k ROM/GROM UberGROM cartridge board (blue) During the Chicago Faire there were bare boards and completed cartridges for sale. Some examples: the games of Rasmus Moustgaard, Exbas 2.7, the game Minesweeper and fbForth.

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The cartridge boards of Jim Fetzner and Jon Guidry are available at the store of Arcade Shopper. There are also complete cartridges for sale. Jon Guidry shows us a number of with a 3d printer produced cartridge covers. They were available in ten different colours. Walid Maalouli demonstrated the first version of his war game ‘Panzer Strike’. The program is written in Exbas and all visitors of the Chicago Faire received a disk with manual of the game. Walid describes the purpose of the game as follows: As a tank platoon commander, you have up to 10 tanks under your command and your orders are to fight your way to and occupy a strategic target. You will be facing stiff opposition from a computer controlled defender and it will take cunning and tactical acumen to reach your objective. Walid has the game (and many more) on his website TI-99/4A Game Shelf. For the lovers of rare Texas Instruments hardware we had a TI-99/2 on display. It was unfortunately not for sale. After the day program of the Faire we went to restaurant Panera. After our dinner Hal Shanafield announced the winner of the John Birdwell Award 2015. The winner was Jim Fetzner and he was glad and very surprised. Then it was time for the jury to decide the winner of the Rob Tempelmans Plat Award 2015. Four board members of the CTIUG and the TIGG had made a selection of four nominations out of a list of ten TI websites:. TI-Gebruikersgroep Nederland Site Ninerpedia The TI99 Home Computer Page Errorfree's Homepage Ninerpedia was this year’s winner. The Chicago Faire was completed with a pub crawl downtown. Let's drink to that!

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F18A VGA CONVERSION v1.5 a how to review I first here’d about the f18a conversion kit for our 99/4a computer at our European group meeting in October 2013 in the beautiful city of Eindhoven Netherlands, when it was demonstrated and Berry had one installed on his TI. And going through a VGA Monitor, and with the picture being that good at 640 by 480 pixels and a possible 512 colours and a possible 80 columns text with just this kit, I knew empty socket for F18a board then for the price I could own one. So on returning home, Trevor ordered two f18a kits from Matthew Hagerty of Codehackcreate.com in USA, one for me and one for himself at a cost of £65 each including shipping and tms 9929a chip before removal at our July 2014 AGM in Oxford, Trevor demonstrated the conversion fitting of the f18a board and VGA connection to his own 994/a console and on completion porting it through his 4:3 state of the art monitor and boy what a difference in picture quality, the best I had seen on a 994/a computer. I then decided to convert one of my machines as soon as possible so over the next couple of days began the task of converting my beige console. Now before we start ALL SCREWS ARE 15 by 4mm self tapping especially for plastic And apart from the 12 screws we also have to remove 3 BOLTS (one short and two long) and if you take photos with your phone as you go F18a board in place without cable. Along you can’t go wrong, and make a note of SMALL PLASTIC LOCATING PINS on power board and metal shielding.

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The way this conversion was started was FIRST to undo completely the 7 screws that keep the top and bottom half together. NEXT pull the bottom away and put to one side, you are left with the top on its back , NOW undo the 2 screws on the right hand corners of the POWER SUPPLY and pull up and turn over NOW release the clip that hold FOUR BROWN WIRES now pull the power supply free and put to one side NOW undo the 3 screws that hold the METAL f18a board now in place with inner cable SHEILDING BOX away from the body top located at bottom left, top right and top centre. NOW undo the 15 pin CLIP that holds the METAL SHEILDING to the KEYBOARD this is rather tricky as the CLIP is hidden under the edge of the MOTHERBOARD the SHEILDING needs to be lifted up slightly off it’s locating pins and the KEYBOARD CLIP eased off the 15 pins located on the MOTHERBOARD also make sure that the MODULE CONNECTOR is eased THE METAL SHEILDING CUT AWAY through it’s small opening without damage and then the SHEILDING can be removed completely from the TOP HALF of the console, now put the TOP HALF of console to one side, and proceed to remove the 3 BOLTS that keep the two halves of the METAL SHEILDING together , the first a short one located CUT OUT AT REAR OF PLASTIC CASE just above the console expansion slot and two LONG BOLTS located on the opposite corner, once removed undo the two metal spring clips that keep the edges in line, and now the SHEILDING can now come apart. NOW locate the TMS9918a or the TMS 9928 or in my case it was the TMS9929 graphics chip,

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It should be in a CHIP SOCKET, and prise up carefully at each end of the CHIP until all pins completely removed from its socket, now put this GRAPHICS CHIP in a safe place in case of future use Now before fitting the f18a board, there are four JUMPER SWITCHES on the board and these can be changed if needed, at the moment only two are F18a Mode on Small Screen currently operated by the user, I TV/Monitor left mine as BOTH In the ON position to give me maximum of 32 sprites on a line now fit the BOARD in the same SOCKET as the GRAPHICS CHIP and replace the METAL SHEILDING temporarily and on doing so decide where you want the VGA SOCKET to protrude out of the back of the PLASTIC CASE, this is most important as you do not have a lot of room ,get a better Idea from PHOTO. I used a fine tooth metal saw to cut only the top half of the SHEILDING and VGA Connection Completed. Then finished the rough edges with a file and made sure there was just enough room for the BACK of the VGA socket to fit now CUT the PLASTIC CASE with the same type of saw and smooth off with file or emery paper, I fixed my VGA SOCKETS backing plate onto the outside of the PLASTIC CASE as there was enough room for the backing plate to fit behind. Anyway it is now time to start the process of putting the console back together in an orderly fashion, FIRST to put together the TWO halves of Console showing VGA and Component Cable METAL SHEILDING, and careful not to damage the motherboard as the SHEILDING has some pretty sharp edges.

41 TI-99/4A User Group UK – TI*MES Newsletter once you have lined up the BOLT HOLES tighten the three BOLTS securely, place it down over the UPPER HALF of the PLASTIC CASE and with great care make sure that the MODULE CONNECTOR is manoeuvred into position and CLIP in the 15 pin KEYBOARD CONNECTOR and then place the SHEILDING over TWO small PLASTIC LOCATING PINS and only then can you fit permanently with THREE SCREWS, NOW place the Trevor's f18a Demo With Hi/Res POWER BOARD on to its TWO small Monitor LOCATING PINS making sure you have the ON/OFF SWITCH and the LED BULB in their respective locations, and that the REAR POWER CONNECTOR WIRES are located across the back of the SHEILDING and taped down, and only then can you fit permanently with TWO SCREWS. NOW place the LOWER HALF of the PLASTIC CASE on top of the UPPER CASE and making sure that the VGA SOCKET is just hanging out of the back very slightly and loose and also that the rest of the TWO HALVES fit together well, only then can it be permanantly fixed with SEVEN SCREWS. Now I f18a MODE ON LARGE 40 INCH TV have fixed the VGA BACKING PLATE with four small round head screws which are n more than 4mm in depth and work pretty good, the VGA SOCKET is very secure. To make it all work you will need a cable of VGA MALE to VGA MALE and make sure you select the correct format from the MONITOR or TV menu. There are a few CARTRIDGES out now that take advantage of the enhanced colour graphics of the VGA CONVERSION by Rasmus Moustgaard of Denmark ; and even most original MODULES work with a much brighter screen and faster too so if ever you do purchase you will not be disappointed

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UK 2016 A G M øjeblikkelig opmærksomhed Onmiddellijke aandacht attenzione immediata sofortige Aufmerksamkeit Immediate attention *******Due to unforeseen circumstances our 2016 UK Annual General Meeting Venue has not yet been finalised. I Will let everyone know by E- mail as soon as Trevor is able to get details early in the New Year.

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31st European TI Treffen September 30 October 1 and October 2, 2016

Hotel Svalen near Copenhagen Roskildevej 333, Baldersbrønde, 2640 Hedehusene

For more information: [email protected]

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MODULE LIBRARY December 2015

TITLE QTY IN STOCK PRICE

ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION 1 ...... 2 ……………...... £3.00 ADVENTURE COMPLETE WITH PIRATE TAPE ...... 6……………...... £5.00 ADVENTURE MODULE ……………………………...... 7 …………...... £3.50

ALIENADDITION…………………………………...... 1………………...... £3.00 ALPINER ……………………………………...... 4 ……………...... £8.00 A-MAZING …………………………………………...... 11 ………………...... ….£3.00

BEGINNING GRAMMAR …………………………………..3 ……………………...... £3.00 BLASTO ……………………………………………………... 2 ……………………...... £4.50

CAR WARS ………………………………………………….. .2 …………………...…...£4.00 CHISHOLM TRAIL ……………………………………… ....2 ……………………...... £3.50 CONNECT FOUR ……………………………………………4 ……………………...... £3.50

DEFENDER (NOT FOR MARK II CONSOLES) ……….....1 …………………....…...£4.50 DISK MANAGER …………………………………………… 6 ……………………...... £2.00 DISK MANAGER 2 …………………………………………. 3 ……………………...... £4.50 DIVISION 1 …………………………………………………..2 ……………………...... £3.00

EARLY LOGO LEARNING FUN …………………………..1 ……………………...... £3.00

EDITOR ASSEMBLER (WITH MANUALS & DISKS) …...5 …………………...... £25.00 EXTENDED BASIC (WITH MANUALS) …………… ...... 4 …………………..…....£22.50 EXTENDED BASIC MODULE ………………………...... 10 ……………………...... £15.00

EXTENDED BASIC (BOXED) ……………………………..1 ……………………...... £40.00

FRACTIONAL NUMBERS ………………………………...1 ……………………...….£3.00

HANGMAN …………………………………………………. 1 …………………..….…£3.00 HOUSEHOLD BUDGET MANAGEMENT ……………… 6 ……………………...... £3.50 HUNT THE WUMPUS ……………………………………...1 ……………………...... £4.00 HUSTLE ……………………………………………………..1 ……………………...….£3.00

INDOOR SOCCER …………………………………………. 3 ……………………...... £4.00

JAWBREAKER II ……………………………………………1 …………………...... £4.00

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TITLE QTY IN STOCK PRICE MICROSURGEON …………………………………………...1 ……………...... £4.50 MINI MEMORY (LINE BY LINE ASSMBL & MANUAL) ..4…………………...... £15.00 MINI MEMORY (AS ABOVE + MINI WRITER) ………...... 2 ………………...... £18.00 MINUS MISSION ………………………………………….....4 ………………...... £4.50 MOONPATROL...... 2...... £4.00 MULTIPLAN (SOFTWARE & MANUALS, BOXED) …...... 1 …………………...... £40.00

MULTIPLAN (SOFTWARE & MANUALS) …………...... 2 ………………...... £20.00 MUNCH MAN ………………………………………………..3 …………………...... £3.50 MUSIC MAKER ……………………………………………...3 …………………...... £4.50

NUMBER MAGIC………………………………………….....2………………….....….£3.50

PAC MAN………………………………………………...... 1…………………...... £3.50 PARSEC……………………………………………………...... 3…………………...... £4.00 PERSONALREALESTATE………………………………...... 1…………………...... £3.00 PERSONAL RECORD KEEPIN……………………...... 9………………...... £3.50 PERSONALREPORTGENERATOR…………………...... 2………………...... £5.50

COMBI PRK+PRG SWITCHABLE. .…………………...... 1 …………………...... £12.00

PHYSICAL FITNESS ……………………………………...... 1 ………………...... £4.00 PROTECTOR II (NOT MARK II CONSOLES) ………...... 4 ..…………………...... £5.00 PROTYPER ………………………………………………...... 1 …………………...... £20.00

RETURN TO PIRATE’S ISLE …………………………...... 1 …………………...... £3.50

SHAMUS (NOT MARK II CONSOLES) ……………...... 4 ………………...... £3.50 SPEECH EDITOR ………………………………………….....1 …………………...... £3.50 SUPER DEMON ATTACK …………………………...... 1 ………………...... £4.50

TERMINAL EMULATOR II ……………………………...... 7 ………………...... £5.00 THE ATTACK …………………………………………...... 2 …………………....….£4.00 TI INVADERS ……………………………………………...... 4 ……………...... £4.00 TI LOGO WITH ORIGINAL FOLDER & MANUAL ...... 1 ……………...... £15.00 TI WRITER ………………………………………………...... 2 ……………...... £8.00 TOMBSTONE CITY ……………………………………...... 7. .……………...... £4.00 TUNNELS OF DOOM (WITH CASSETTE) …………...... 1 ……………...... £3.50

VIDEO CHESS ………………………………………...... 3 …………...... £5.00 VIDEO GAMES 1 ……………………………………...... 2 …………...... £3.50

YAHTZEE …………………………………………...... 2 ………………...... £3.00 Please get in touch with Francesco Lama or David Caine for shipping infrmation

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TIUGUK Membership Update Dec 2015 Please be aware all users in UK and some from abroad that our group needs your yearly membership fee, as this year it is £ 9.00 and this goes towards New Software, Hardware, and with us now down to one venue per year such as our Annual General Meeting we are able to make it into a three day event which is more practical for users from afar, and as a rule these events cost, to hire a Meeting room or hall for three days would be any ware between £100 and £300 per weekend. We were able to get our Meeting room at this year’s CREWE TREFF for free on condition our group could fill at least 12 b&b bedrooms over three nights, which we did So you see these things have to be well organized in advance, and this is where your commitment comes into play, to say well in advance whether you will be attending our AGM or you will be paying MEMBERSHIP FEES Or both! I understand that members have been dwindling and that users have not had a sense of togetherness but now I feel we are now on track and back in business, so please rejoin and pay your subs, and we will do our very best to keep our group going for the foreseeable future. We also now have a regular TWICE per year TI*MES publication which has now been running from August 2013 and is distributed electronically by E-mail to now about 60 users worldwide, so if you can attend an Annual General Meeting you will be supplied with an updated A5 paper booklet of the same at no extra cost. MEMBERSHIP PAYMENT, if you have a PayPal account, just go to your account and one option will be to ‘SEND MONEY’ click on and send £ 9.00 to [email protected] and put in comments box ‘this is for MEMBERSHIP Dec 2015 to Dec 2016’ it may cost about 50pence to send, depends on account. OTHER OPTIONS TO PAY Contact: User Group Chairman: TREVOR STEVENS on +44 (0)1623406133 or cell: +44 (0)7968370589 or E-Mail: [email protected] Or Contact:Richard Twyning on [email protected] or +44 (0) 7767445658 David Caine on [email protected] or +44 (0) 7752052117 . THANK YOU

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THE BOARD OF THE TIUGUK

TREVOR STEVENS GROUP CHAIRMAN [email protected] 0044 (0)7968 37 05 89

RICHARD TWYNING TREASURER & SECRETARY . [email protected] 0044 (0)7767 44 56 58

FRANCESCO LAMA GROUP MEDIA LIBRARIAN [email protected] Cassette, Disk and Module

DAVID CAINE USER GROUP EDITOR [email protected] 0044 (0)7752 05 21 17

BERRY HARMSEN CONTRIBUTING EDITOR [email protected] Reporter from the Netherlands

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